Moloch: Reactions
by mamfa
Summary: Third in the Moloch series, following 'Education.' What harm can occur from the best intentions, and what happens when you hold back too long?


You know the song and dance routine by now. Marvel's, not mine. Toby mine. Obligatory death threat, etc.   
This is set a year after the events of "Education", and a year before the events of "Echoes." Enjoy. Complaints, praise, yadda yadda to mamfa@start.com.au  
  
Moloch: Reactions  
  
"Ha! Look at him run!"  
Toby Creed , fourteen going on dead, stumbled blindly through the school grounds. He was dazed and bleeding from   
a cut on the side of his head – a cut that would heal to a thin red line in minutes. Someone had thrown a brick at him   
again, and he'd fallen off his beautiful bicycle, which had a long scratch along the shiny paint.   
He was treated like this all the time, ostracized and ridiculed by all but his close circle of friends. His eternal nemesis   
was the leader of the Group, a stocky boy named Luke Lightner. Luke was everything Toby was not: he came from a   
respectable and fabulously wealthy family, his father was a civilized businessman, he was well-liked and popular,   
and he was human.  
Whereas Toby Creed was an orphan, living through the charity of his benefactors, his father was a genocidal maniac,   
he was generally despised, and he was a mutant.  
Sometimes, Toby thought shakily, leaning heavily on the wall, life really sucked.  
But he didn't dare get angry or upset about his circumstances. He had, after all, endured far worse in the crucible of   
pain where he was raised – an orphanage run by the mob in order to breed their new thugs. And getting angry was a   
sure-fire way to release the final and absolute fury inside, the animal rage he had inherited from his father. Toby   
locked his resentment deep down inside, and continued to stumble for the school proper.  
A thin and strange figure he cut, dressed in his expensive school clothes, which had a large tear and smears of mud   
on the left knee. His flyaway blond hair rose in a bristling aureole around his head, emphasizing the unnatural   
paleness of his skin. Each of his fingers ended in a vicious, razor-sharp claw – another legacy of his father. His ears   
were slightly pointed, and rose through the cloud of messy gold, and his eyes were a brilliant, utterly abnormal blue,   
crystalline in their clarity. Toby Creed looked like the offspring of a demon and a pixie.  
He blinked rapidly as he floundered up the stairs to the English department. His orientation was returning, much to   
his relief. One very welcome aspect of his mutation – a healing factor, immature at present, but enough to generate   
envy. Possibly the only welcome aspect of his mutation, at that. His emotions were not allowed to be his own, but   
had to be under constant check, less the berserker rage emerge and run free. He was going to see the only person at   
school who understood – the English teacher, Henry St. John Wallace, a comical-looking man with a mind of   
uncommon sharpness. With Wallace, he was just a boy who was good with words – not a social pariah carrying an   
unfashionable gene or two.   
Toby staggered up the stairs and along the corridor to where Wallace's poky, cramped little office was situated, next   
to the broom closet and opposite the English text storage room, usually called the book room. Wallace's study was   
overflowing with scraps of paper, old, yellowing books with beautifully thin, musty-smelling pages, files and manila   
folders and notes of various importance and ages. It was speculated that many of the notes outdated Wallace himself,   
and that small, slowly growing civilizations were colonizing beneath the shifting, sifting stacks.   
The overlarge man sitting at the barely-recognizable desk was absurd to look upon. He looked almost like a   
caricature, his large, rounded paunch, once-powerful frame, iron-grey bouffant, round face and pointed nose giving   
him the overstated effect of a cartoon character. However, the twinkling blue eyes behind a pair of round silver-  
rimmed glasses were wise and knowledgeable, observant to the point of telepathy. Henry Wallace started as he heard   
Toby cough to announce his presence.  
"Ah! Master Creed!" he beamed, when he had turned on the office chair (which was broken and had a coffee stain on   
the back). "One of these days, I will actually be able to tell when you enter a room, see if I don't!"  
"I live in eternal anticipation," answered Toby laconically, sitting down on the other chair, a very comfortable old   
armchair with tattered armrests.  
Wallace's sharp eyes flickered to the rapidly-healing cut on Toby's forehead. "I see you have passed between Scylla   
and Charybdis once again," he said noncommittally.  
Toby let out an explosive sigh. "I wish I could do something about it…"  
Wallace leaned back in his chair. It creaked alarmingly. "I don't see what you can do, my boy. There isn't a soul   
amongst the staff who agrees with such behaviour, however, and we all do our utmost to stamp it out."  
"Not one?" Toby raised a blond eyebrow, quirking his mouth. He'd gotten into that habit somewhere, thought   
Wallace ruefully. It was a defense mechanism, to indicate his wry acceptance of his situation. Unfortunate how it   
revealed nearly a centimeter of overlocking fang.   
"Very well, I concede the exception," Wallace nodded his head graciously. A few strands of his tortured bouffant   
escaped their unnatural positioning, flying free and wild. By the end of the school day, Wallace's hair would   
resemble nothing quite so much as a dandelion in a stiff breeze. "My illustrious and unforgiving colleague is indeed   
rather lax in his stamping."  
"I'm afraid it isn't so much lax as it is an unwillingness to cause any side-benefit to me," said Toby thoughtfully. "I   
know he suspects."  
Wallace tried to stop his own mouth from quirking. Remarkably intelligent though the boy was, sometimes he could   
be fearfully dense. "For a person of even mild cerebral activity, it isn't too hard to work out. You are, after all, using   
your father's last name."  
Toby gave a short bark of laughter. His choral voices, always unnerving, sent shudders up Wallace's spine as they   
echoed in any available resonant space – up to and including sinuses. "I hadn't thought of that. Well, it's too late   
now – the damage has been done."  
"Forsooth, I do perceive thy wretched malady," declaimed Wallace in his rich, booming British accent. "Let thy   
weary burden fall, for thy comrades stout-hearted doth support thee and give thee sweet succour."  
"Graciously do I thank thee, my lord," replied Toby, his disposition brightening with laughter. "Thine aid was indeed   
most timely, and thy words a balm unto mine heart. Prithee, shouldst thou require it, mine arm is yours in grateful   
thanks."  
"Nobly spoken, my lord," said Wallace whimsically. "Now that thy dour demeanor is of the past, let us attend to the   
business at hand."  
"Which is, my lord?"  
"Gossip, my lord."  
The boy looked startled. "My lord?"  
Wallace lifted a long, knobbly finger in dramatic declamation. "A most worthy cause, I 'ween, deserving of all our   
energy, interest and attention. Also, I'm a fair bit behind on the grapevine, and I haven't the added impetus of Miss   
Marshall's good graces, so…"  
Toby laughed then, for the first time in a month.  
After the boy left, Henry Wallace sighed, and took off his rounded glasses, polishing them absently against his tweed   
suit. He didn't envy Toby Creed's position one iota, suspended forever between the lot life had cast him, the   
situation he was placed in, and the threat of his own nature. Literature, he reflected idly, harps continually of some   
mythic rock and an equally phantasmal hard place – such a predicament would be an utter walk in the park in   
comparison to what Toby had to put up with. And on top of it all, the boy had to contend with his own raging   
adolescent hormones.   
Still, Henry Wallace had faith. Not faith in anything specific, per se: the effect of a lifelong education had left him an   
incurable agnostic. But he had faith that there was some method in the boy's misery, faith in the boy, and in the   
boy's abilities. He was far stronger than people gave him credit – perhaps an aftereffect of his orphanage days. One   
of these days his tormentors would turn around and find that the kitten they had been afflicting had become a lion.   
  
Gabrielle Marshall pressed her lips together in disapproval.  
Usually, this was a warning sign for the object of her displeasure to scamper out of there as fast as legs would carry   
them, but the object in question was not overly endowed in the mental department. And they were about to find   
themselves a little lacking in the oxygen supply as well, if they didn't stop their infernal snickering.  
Gabby placed her hands on her hips and regarded Jim Hefner, Roger Schneider, and Joe Waldi grinning like lunatics   
and miming a throw in their general corner. Joe, she noted with satisfaction, wasn't really joining in. He was acting   
for his friends' benefit, and had not enjoyed seeing Toby hit by half-bricks. Whereas Jim and Roger had most likely   
thrown the bricks themselves – their determined harrowing of her best friend (maybe kinda boyfriend dunno sorta)   
was legendary amongst the rivalries of the school.  
Not as famous, however, as the pure and implacable hatred that existed between Toby and his arch-rival, Luke   
Lightner. Luke was the ringleader of the Group, the clique of popular, rich, socially acceptable students who would   
most likely rise to become the crème de la crème of society, much like their parents and forebears. Anyone without   
their social skills, money, looks, breeding or simply mediocre charisma was steadfastly ignored – and in extreme   
cases, abused mentally and physically. Children can be cruel – but to a child convinced of their own paramount   
importance and with an account to rival that of a merchant banker, cruelty is the amusement of the amateur. And   
there seemed to be no case more extreme than Toby, who was the uncomplaining recipient of unending, increasingly   
savage oppression.  
Had Toby been any other normal boy, his parents could have complained to the principal, or transferred him from the   
school. But Toby's parents were a mother long presumed dead, and a homicidal, animalistic excuse for a father. The   
only family he knew barely trusted him as it was, and besides, he knew that complaining would only exacerbate the   
situation. He was barely coping now.  
Gabby was his tireless advocate, furiously defending him to any and every tormentor and dubious bystander. It was   
in her nature to stand up for the underdog, to use her intelligence and quick wit on their behalf. Most were afraid of   
her, and with good reason, for her sharp tongue and her army of grateful devotees. She possessed the enviable talent   
of eradicating a person's inflated ego with a skilful application of the English language. She certainly put it to good   
use.  
"I suppose you think that's funny," she said with biting haughtiness. Jim and Roger started. Joe looked guiltily at   
her.  
"So what if we did, Marshall," said Jim carelessly.  
"So that would mean that the level your intelligence is even more deficient than I surmised," she snapped back as   
insultingly as possible, and with such an air of superiority that the two boys were taken aback. The mercurial   
Gabrielle Marshall was an adversary of many faces. Her skill as an actress had been honed to precision by her moral   
crusading.   
"Was that an insult?" murmured Roger, who was far better at Math than English.   
"Yeah, reckon so," scowled Jim, who in truth had no idea.   
"Still figuring out what I said, hmm?" asked Gabby airily.  
"No, we knew what it meant," Roger shot back, though the tone of uncertainty had not left his voice. Gabby heard,   
and pounced upon it.  
"Well, since you're so smart, then let's play a game," she said sweetly, all saccharine deadliness. Joe backed away,   
towards the corner.  
"What kinda game?" asked Jim suspiciously.  
"Kick the snobby bitch outta our corner," sneered Roger.  
"I like that one," Jim grinned. Gabby titled her head to one side, her façade shifting once more. Her eyelashes   
lowered, and she allowed them to look upon her petite demureness before answering. "Let's pretend that I'm the   
dumb one," she began, with an artful little catch in her voice, "and that you are the smart ones."  
"Cool. We're smart," began Jim, leering.  
Joe frowned a little as he concentrated. "Pretend we're the smart ones?" he said weakly. Einstein he was not, but   
young Joe Waldi was blessed with that most common of senses that let him know (eventually) that he was   
outmatched. Unnoticed, he slid along the wall, hoping for an escape.  
Gabby let him go, pretending she didn't notice him bumbling along the wall. Normally, she'd have pounced. But Joe   
was Toby's friend. And Gabby took matters like friendship (coughboyfriend-shipcough) very seriously. "That's   
right," she told the other two, smiling her most beguiling smile. "You're so much smarter than I am."  
Consummate actress or not, she couldn't stop the sarcasm from her voice.  
Luckily, the two imbeciles didn't notice. "A 'course we are," preened Roger. "You're just a girl. An' yer black, too."  
Jim's brow furrowed. "Dude, I'm black."  
"Yeah, but you're like, one of them smart ones."  
Gabby hid her displeasure (fury) with a great effort. "That's right," she said in an enticing tone. "You're so very   
smart."  
"Yup."  
"That's us."  
"Even though you're a nigger."  
"Shut up, fuckhead."  
"And since you're so smart," Gabby let acid seep from the words. They cut ribbons in the psyche. "Since you're   
Sartre, Bohrs and Shakespeare put together, you should have no trouble deciphering the content of my initial   
communication. Correct?"  
They stared at her, deflating slowly, their lips moving slightly as they tried to mimic what she had just said. She   
smiled at them with all the warmth of a reptile, and strode off, her sensible shoes snapping a mocking retort at the   
two bullies.   
Being in Toby's English class, also, helped enormously.  
  
"That ain't right."  
"What's that, Logan?" said Storm, looking up from her book to see her old friend and teammate stride into the rec   
room.   
"This. What this kid can do. It ain't right." Against all prior evidence to the contrary, Ororo could have sworn that   
that was a worried look on Wolverine's face. He paced like a caged animal, waving in his hand a reel of tape that she   
recognized as a Danger Room recording.   
"What are you so concerned about, Logan?" she asked again with infinitesimal patience.  
"Toby, woman! He's bloody good, better than any kid has a right to be." Logan stopped dead before her. "I can't tell   
Slim, the professor, or any o' the other leaders cos they'll treat him like an animal, like…"  
"…like they did you," said Ororo, perceiving his quandary.  
He let out an explosive breath. "Yeah."  
"So you are saying that our young charge has excelled in his training to the point where he has become a potential   
threat?" mused Storm. Logan snorted.  
"'Ro, you were there the very first day he had a session. An' I'm tellin' you now, he was a potential threat then. He's   
a potential disaster now."  
Ororo frowned. She was genuinely fond of their ward, who possessed a curious affinity with the sun and with nature   
that Ororo empathized with. "What… exactly is it on that tape that has you so anxious?"  
Logan held her gaze. "He systematically butchered his way through an entire Hand scenario."  
"Goddess," she breathed. "Those were designed…"  
"….fer me," he finished her sentence grimly. "Cos I thought the normal trainin' programs were boring."  
"And he made his way through it?" she pressed. Logan laughed his raspy laugh, though there was no humour in it.  
"He weren't even sweatin'. The godamned Hand Program, 'Ro!"  
Bright Lady!  
Ororo's shock did not register on her face. "And was he berserk when this occurred?"  
Slowly, Logan shook his head, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "Cool as a flamin' cucumber. His feelin's are   
too well buried fer the rage to take over."  
She clenched her fists. "Logan, you have seen me when my control cracks. You have seen my 'animal'. You know   
the utter devastation I can cause when my emotions break free from years and years of caution. It is all the worse for   
being locked away for so long."  
Logan made no move, but recognition glimmered in his dark eyes. "Yeah?"  
"Why is it, you suppose, that I customarily find some remote locale, once or twice a month, and let my spirit free?"  
Understanding dawned. "So that when ya do lose control, whether from claustrophobia or anger or whatever…"  
"… I do not destroy everything within a 400-kilometer radius," she finished bitterly. "Soften the blow, somewhat."  
"You think tiger needs ta get out an' vent somewhere?" Logan scratched at his head. Ororo closed her eyes,   
imagining a small, earnest, innocent face, and the crushing evils it had inherited.   
"I think it would be beneficial. His prowess in the Danger room…" she hesitated. The Hand Program. "It is possibly   
another way to work out his aggravations and frustrations. It is equipped to deal with you in a berserker rage, so why   
not him?"  
He won't let himself give in to the blood lust, 'Ro. Aloud he replied. "Yer probably right, 'Ro. I'll talk to the kid   
tonight, see what he feels about a new schedule."  
Ororo raised one perfect eyebrow. "And you have not taught him the doctrines in which you place so much faith,   
Logan. Yours are the beliefs that will help him the most."  
Won't do the poor little bastard much good, Logan thought glumly. Toby was, slowly and reluctantly and despite his   
best efforts, becoming his father. "Fer sure, 'Ro. Thanks."  
"Not a problem, my friend."  
  
"Henry. What brings you here?"  
Wallace sat down in the Principal's airy, beautifully appointed office, a far cry from his mildewed domain. Glossy   
hardwood and soft plush furniture in forest green created a soothing, professional atmosphere. He smiled affably at   
his colleague and friend, before pulling off his little glasses and polishing them on his tweed coat.  
"Richard. I think we ought to have a little talk about Toby."  
Richard Harding, Principal of Salem Centre Private, folded his hands on his desk. He was a man of medium height   
with silvering black hair and deep-set dark eyes, and an aquiline nose. "Toby Creed? Is something the matter with   
the lad?" He was concerned for the boy, a product of his need to protect a student, and a desire to prove his   
trustworthiness to Charles Xavier, his old university friend.  
"Not so much the matter with Toby as with his predicament, Richard. You know the way the children treat him."  
Harding sighed, and nodded his head. "I know."  
"Do you know how bad it has become?" Wallace pressed. "He came to my office this morning with blood pouring   
from his temple. The others had been throwing bricks – bricks, Richard! – at him. I'm sure he knows who it was, but   
he won't name any names."  
Harding was silent.  
"You know what the boy battles, inside his head. Should such victimization continue, one day he will lose the war,   
and god help us all. Who knows what he is capable of, in a rage? You know his heritage. And they'll lock him away   
like a beast, like a freak." Wallace's usually cheerful face was somber.  
"I cannot condone a course of action that will single out one student and pander to their specific needs above   
everyone else," said Harding slowly.  
Wallace's already florid face went purple. "Richard, you are not a stupid man in the slightest. Have you lost your   
wits, ignoring everything I have just said to you?"  
"I never said I didn't listen," said Harding mildly. "You're overly passionate, Henry, you always have been. This   
makes you a wonderful English teacher, but a poor Principal. I will come down hard on the head of anyone who   
persecutes the boy, but I cannot rearrange my school, inconveniencing everyone else, simply to accommodate him.   
Do you understand my position?"  
Wallace seemed to deflate, his jowls sagging. "Never say I didn't warn you, Richard. Furthermore, the boy isn't   
stupid. He could be the most brilliant literature and drama student I've ever taught. Don't be surprised if he   
rearranges your school to his liking, with or without your approval."  
Harding cocked his head. "Henry, you are making far too much of this. I am very fond of Toby, and he visits me on a   
regular basis to let me know what is happening. You are making me out to be as studiously ignorant as Edgar   
Thompson, for god's sake!"  
Wallace waved a large, thick-callused hand. "No, no. Edgar is a fool. You have always been a fair-minded man, with   
your eyes firmly set upon justice and equality. I am trying to warn you that those very traits may lead you to ignore   
matters which could erupt any time now."  
"Well, I shall certainly bear the warning in mind." Indeed, Harding's voice betrayed a hint of his concern. "Do you   
have a proposed plan of action?"  
Wallace steepled his fingers over his round paunch, leaning back in the plush chair. "I would keep a very close eye   
on the boy. I would plan several ways to contain him, should his control snap. I would have a direct emergency line   
to the X-Men, and let them know your fears – although I'm sure they already have some idea of the circumstances. I   
would also individually take every child who is known to persecute him aside, and talk to them firmly. I would   
threaten them with suspension, even expulsion, for endangering the safety of the school environment."  
Harding's open countenance was now drawn with worry. "You realize that their parents will simply insist Toby   
leaves the school?"  
Wallace's fingers unlaced, and his hand slammed down on the desk with a thwam! "YOU are the Headmaster here,   
by Jove!" he roared, making Miss Tweed (standing with her ear against the keyhole, no doubt) squeak most   
inelegantly. "YOU have the final say in how this school is run! Tell me, would we really be overly deprived should   
those young delinquents transfer to another school?"  
"Financially, certainly," Harding remarked, but there was a glint in his eye. He'd quite forgotten the fiery side of old   
Wallace's nature. The man was characteristic of the 'old' British spirit – all pride, honour and stiff upper lips. A   
terrible stereotype, of course, but one which served the verbose English master well, allowing him to operate behind   
his cliché. "I'll do as you suggest, old friend. You've given me a fair bit to think about."  
Wallace's answering smile was uncharacteristically grim. "Now we pray to whatever gods are listening that the   
warning did not come too late."  
  
"I swear," said Toby adamantly, "one day, I am going to bust their asses but good…!"  
"You're all talk," said Gabby scornfully. "You lie down and take it, and then swear for half an hour about how   
you're going to take them down. You know what, Toby? You're full of shit."  
He sighed. "You're right. But what would you have me do? Lose my temper?"  
She paled. "Er…"  
"Exactly."  
They were sitting in the cafeteria, in their usual spot by the door. It was almost time for school to begin. Andy and   
Tom were boasting loudly, trying simultaneously to impress the shy, pretty Susie. Toby had a bad feeling about this   
day. It had started badly, and there was the uneasy suspicion that it could only get worse.  
He consoled himself with the thought that the very, very worst that could happen at school was for him to lose his   
temper, and that wasn't going to happen. It was damped down so hard, he sometimes felt like a mockery of a human   
being, an empty shell that went through the motions of living. There was utterly no way he would lose his hard-  
earned control for the idiots who went to his snobby private school.  
They're not worth it. Not worth it at all.  
The bell rang, and he sighed, picking up his bag. Math was first, and it was all he could do not to bolt back home as   
fast as his legs would carry him. Before he came to this school, he had been certain that he could take any   
mutiphobic idiocy that came his way. Hadn't he had the phrase 'die mutie' carved into his back? Hadn't his neck   
snapped? Hadn't his arms and fingers been broken more times than he could recall?  
That was before he had learned of the snide malice of one Edgar Thompson, the math master. A sallow man with a   
decidedly hooked nose and balding, greasy black hair, he was Toby's most persistent nemesis, his arch-foe, and the   
bane of his existence. Toby dreaded math with the fear and trepidation most reserved for himself. Toby would had   
cheerfully kissed his father's feet rather than spend more than an hour with the sour, vindictive Thompson.  
"Buck up," Tom whispered to him. Tom Sheppard, a red-headed, freckly lad who seemed to consist of all knees and   
freckle and cheeky grin, was Toby's bestest best friend, and knew most of Toby's dreads and fears. 'Buck up,'   
indeed. Well, it was a few letters of the alphabet away from how he usually felt.  
"God, let me outta here…" was his answer.  
Andy shared a wry grin with Tom, before yanking Toby up by the arm. "C'mon, sport," he said in his best imitation   
of McIntyre, the bluff Australian sports master. "Get yaself tagether, mate!"  
"You've got a lousy Aussie accent," Toby groaned, but he allowed himself to be led to the math classroom. It was a   
routine now – dragging Toby anywhere which involved Thompson.   
It's okay, it's okay, it's okay… see? You're against the wall. He'll hardly see you from the front desk, so quit   
worrying about… oh shit.  
Thompson stalked into the room. Immediately, his eyes traveled over his students to rest on the violently cringing   
Toby, and the sallow lip curled back in a sneer.   
Bastard! Bastard, bastard, bastard! Toby envisioned Hank's oversized feet pummeling the long saturnine face,   
Logan's claws running through the tall, lanky body, Mister Scott's optic blast smashing through the remains, Bobby   
encasing whatever scraps were left in extra-density ice.   
Unfortunately, as with all other daydreams of that ilk, nothing happened. Thompson, singularly un-pummeled, un-  
shredded, un-blasted and completely ice-free sat down at the desk, and reached into his drawer.  
Oh no. Oh, nonononono…  
"Today, as you might remember," Thompson said silkily, "we have a test. You should all have studied diligently,   
and I expect an improvement from you all this time."  
He knew it wasn't any good, but Toby still raised his hand. Thompson's face darkened.  
"Creed."  
"Sir, I didn't know about any test."  
"Really." Not even Mister Cable could sound quite so evil, not even when he was coffee-deprived and his room had   
been booby-trapped by Jubes and Bobby. "There was a notice sent out to all of your homes about it. I must have   
neglected to remind the class."  
Fucking, fucking bastard! "I didn't get a notice sir," said Toby dully. There was a snigger from the direction of Luke   
Lightner.   
Thompson's lips twisted into a mockery of a sympathetic smile. "That's a shame, Creed. It must have been lost in   
the mail."  
He'd never heard anyone, not even Mister Logan or Miss Betsy, say his last name with the same amount of vicious   
bile. It was as though all the vitriolic hatred stored inside Thompson escaped with the utterance of that one word,   
Creed, to bite into Toby like a razor covered in acid.   
Die! Diediediediedie! "It must have," Toby repeated. It was no good arguing.  
"So you must make do without warning. Let us see if that brilliant brain of yours works when you haven't   
memorized the textbook," Thompson said drily, and Toby flinched. Well, that was sort of true. Toby consistently   
received high marks in all his subjects, including math when Thompson couldn't call him on his handwriting or some   
small miscalculation. Toby's handwriting was, admittedly, atrocious. The price to pay for having inch-long claws   
and fangs and a habit of chewing your pencil (he couldn't use pens very well. The ink spurted everywhere when he   
tried to grasp them).   
Thompson handed out the test sheets, and sat back to watch Toby struggle. He was disappointed when the young   
mutant boy bent to the task, his pencil whispering across the paper. Damn. Despite all his efforts, he couldn't find an   
excuse to get the Creed boy expelled. He was too good a student, and he kept a low profile. He even sat there –  
meekly! – and endured the taunting and intellectual abuse as stoically as a rock. If only he would lose his temper!   
But no.  
Edgar Thompson was not a particularly bad man, nor a particularly good one. He was doomed to be as middling   
average as they come. He had been touched by nothing of greatness, nor was he very likeable. His was the everyday   
irritability and spite that plagues the weak of imagination. And he was a bigot in the meanly ordinary sense of the   
word. The only thing which had saved him from intolerable mediocrity was his wife, Lucinda, killed years before by   
a murderer, a madman, a mutant.   
Creed…  
She had been the one thing to lift him out of his terribly average existence and show him that he could be a good   
man, a better man, a loving, sweet, happy man. She had been a pretty thing with green eyes and hair of chestnut   
brown. And Sabretooth had killed her, almost without thinking, on his rampage through New York after breaking   
free from X-Factor. She had been just another victim, and he had been forced back into his humdrum   
commonplaceness. And he hated with a passion that was the only remarkable thing about him.  
He was sure that the Creed creature was a relative, some kind of spawn. It was only a matter of time before he went   
the way of the animal which bred it. And Edgar Thompson was possessed of that patience available only to the very,   
very obsessed. His eyes bored into Creed as the boy sweated under his gaze. The sweat made the pencil slippery in   
his grasp, and those infernal claws – claws killed my Lucy – punctured the painted red wood easily, dipping through   
to the lead. Thompson smirked with consummate disdain. Mediocre he may be, but in this room, he was more   
powerful than the President.  
At the end of the double, he drew himself up and stalked around silently. Children just as silently handed to him their   
completed tests. The Creed boy shook visibly as he advanced, then pulled himself together to hold out the test. The   
young monster had bravery. But so did a dog. Thompson took it slowly, his eyes never leaving the boy, who was   
trembling violently, though his gaze was clear.   
Abruptly a white line of pain erupted on Thompson's forearm, and he hissed in shock and alarm. Toby's eyes   
widened, and his jaw fell. When handing the test to Thompson, his nervous shaking had led his claws to brush   
against Thompson's arm. Blood welled up as Thompson watched in stupefaction, and it landed with a sploch! on the   
boy's desk.  
"Oh my god… I'm sorry sir, I never meant to…" Toby started, his voices spiralling in his alarm.  
Almost absently, Thompson drew his bloodied arm back, and sent it crashing across the Creed's face. The boy   
reeled, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. But the real prize was the snarl across his face – his teeth   
stained red, glinting dagger-sharp, his eyes feral and wild. Then the look was gone, buried deep under a look of   
shame and hurt, and the boy grabbed his bag and ran from the room, past the triumphant Thompson.  
I knew it.   
  
Toby raced as fast as his legs would carry him into the grounds, and collapsed against the grass of the football field.   
His heart was pounding faster than he'd ever thought possible. Something very strange had happened to him –   
something wonderful and wrong!   
When Thompson had hit him, for a second he had felt alive. Raw and bleeding and alive, as though someone had lit a   
fire in his stomach that had shot instantly to his brain in a blazing white line. His vision sharpened, and the taste of   
blood in his mouth was intoxicating, even more so than kissing Gabrielle Marshall in the sunny mansion grounds. He   
had been within an inch of leaping at Thompson and running his claws through that much-hated face, slicing the   
eagle-like nose clean off.   
This is bad, this is so, so bad…  
Even worse was the fact that it had not completely disappeared. He still felt poised for action, his emotions half-  
locked down, half-tearing insanely at their bonds. His feelings had experienced a taste of freedom, and they wanted   
more. Toby was praying that the 'more' wouldn't cost anymore than a few sleepless nights, and not the lives of his   
peers.   
He sat staring at the grass for a long time. Distantly, he heard the bell ring for the start of recess, and the clatter of   
schoolchildren pouring from the buildings. Idly he examined the still-wet blood on his claws. Thompson's blood. He   
raised the claw to his lips…  
And remembered something Logan had said. "He's got a habit o' lickin' the blood from his claws."  
Fucking hell! Damn, damn, damn!   
Was this the price for an accident of birth? Never allowing yourself to follow your own nature, succumbing to an   
ideal and sacrificing all dignity and self-respect? He was in a cage of his own making, a lonely, lifeless, soulless   
place where echoes of his father beckoned. You cannot fight it. He couldn't. Who's to say you can?  
Or is this the way his father had fallen? Toby was ostracized as an animal, a monster, when in truth he fought daily   
against the beast in his head. Had his father been the same way? Alienated and despised for a life that wasn't his?   
And had he decided one day to stop trying for something more noble, and became what everyone thought him? Had   
he stopped trying through desperation?   
Toby was on the edge of something big here. If he could only understand!  
"So you finally snapped, huh, freak?"  
Oh, he understood that all right. He understood why anyone would want to lash out at that. "Leave me alone,   
Lightner."  
"Or what, you'll scratch me?" Luke snickered. Toby could hear the sycophantic giggles of the Group behind him, but   
his eyes were still firmly trained on his claws. On the blood on the claws. On the blood.  
"You know, Mr. Thompson said he was going to talk to the Principal about you. I reckon you're going to get shipped   
to some special education thing where the teacher stands behind a glass window, and you get bolted to your chair.   
That's what I heard they do to the dangerous mutie children."  
"Go away, Lightner." Toby's voices seemed so very, very cold. He imagined that his head was a roaring furnace,   
ready to fizzle and set the room alight. Then he encased the furnace in a block of ice, containing it. The fire was a   
dull ruddy glow – ice could contain it, but not extinguish it.   
Fucking, fucking hell.  
Toby had never thought so many swear words in his well-mannered, meek, unobtrusive life. But then, he'd never   
shed a real person's blood before either. Or imagined himself killing people, one brutal death after the other. And he   
was terrified of the idea of the cage…  
"You know what else, mutie? Thompson got into a blazing row with your precious Wallace. The senile old fart   
probably doesn't know what hit him."  
Toby severely doubted that. He'd been on the receiving end of Wallace's tongue once, and it had been a real eye-  
opener.   
"They were going to speak to ol' Harding. What do you think of that?"  
"I think you should go away." The red mist was back, creeping from the bottom of his sphere of vision, along the top   
rim of his lower eyelid, and spreading like ink poured into a bath – in great billowing clouds of transparent colour.  
"I saw that scratch on Thompson's arm. That was nothing, you know. My cat could have done better." He laughed.   
"After all, you're just a big cat, aren't you? Here, puss, puss, puss!"  
The Group roared. Toby felt something hit the back of his head. A clod of dirt. He rocked with the impact, and   
strained as the rage clawed at his mind, snapping and hissing at its chains, yearning for the blood, the carnage, the   
mayhem. No. Just ignore it, and they'll go away.  
They never go away.  
Ignore them anyway!  
I'm always ignoring them! I want to hurt them back!  
I won't. I could kill them, and then where would I be? In a cage.  
I hate cages. But is this worse than a cage?  
No. This is a cage for my mind.  
My mind?  
It's the cage of the mind that my father broke free of, I'll bet. Does he hate cages too?  
Who gives a fuck what that psychopath thinks? He left me to die.  
I care. I do care. Goddamn, he's the only comparison I have, and the only example.  
Some role model.  
I've got to stop speaking to myself.  
I need to understand!  
The laughter was ringing in his ears, so it came as a complete shock when it stopped. It came as an even greater   
shock to hear that he was growling.   
"Toby?" It was Gabby. Her eyes were wide.  
Don'tanswerdon'tanswerdon'tanswer!  
He tried to say, "It's okay. I'm alright." But all that surfaced was a snarl. He was aware that people were starting to   
back away, and that there was more than the Group behind him.   
"So the little animal finally showed his colours," came the snide tone he hated so well. Toby's growl upped a   
semitone, and doubled in volume. He couldn't seem to control himself, inside looking out as everyone else stared at   
his shame.   
"Leave him alone!" it was Gabby again, to his defense.   
"Why, don't you know, Miss Marshall?" Thompson stalked over to Toby, and grabbed him by the chin. Black eyes   
glared with disgust at him, before his face was thrust away, and he was sprawling on the grass. He suppressed the   
overwhelming urge to leap and tear Thompson's face off. "This piece of carrion, this animal freak is none other than   
the son of Victor Creed. Isn't that right, filth?"  
Toby could only snarl half-heartedly. Please, no! Please, no! Please, nonononono!  
Gabby was silent. He could smell the cold sweat that had broken out all over her.   
Thompson gave him a contemptuous glance, before turning back to his rapt audience. "Victor Creed is the most   
wanted man in the world. He's a serial killer, a sociopathic killing machine, and a murderer for hire. You thought no-  
one would find out? That your terrible little secret would be safe? Victor Creed is Sabretooth." He laughed his snide   
laugh, baring his teeth in his snide smile at the gasps that echoed from his rapt audience. "I managed to get it out of   
that fool Harding in less than ten minutes. And blood will tell, won't it? You're no better, for all that you pretend to   
be human. Nothing but an animal."  
"Not… an animal…" Toby grated.  
"It speaks!" Thompson raised his arms in wonder. "Ladies and gentlemen, a talking dog!"  
"Not an animal!" Toby roared, his voices going mad. Many put their hands over their ears in order to stop their   
eardrums from bursting. "I'm human, no matter who my fucking father was. But if you insist on treating me like one,   
is it any surprise that I act like one?"  
Thompson's lip curled. "Your father killed my wife. My wife! And you sit there with that smug look on your freak   
face and tell me you're human?!"  
"More human than you," Toby growled. His claws were bare. They had tasted this man's blood.   
No!  
"You'll always be an animal, just like the animal who begot you," Thompson sneered. The words wrote themselves   
in scarlet on the walls of Toby's mind. "You can't be anything more if you tried."  
Something in Toby's head snapped…  
  
"HARDING!" Wallace roared, racing as fast as his bulky body would allow him. "HARDING!" Miss Tweed was   
looking scandalized at the noise.  
"Henry? Calm down, would you…?" Harding sauntered out of his office, his mind still pondering the argument he   
had just had with Thompson. The man was intolerable, but he prided himself on fairness and equality.   
"EDGAR HAS GONE AND DONE IT! HE'S GONE AND DONE IT, RICHARD!"  
"Calm down!"  
Wallace's beefy fists were spasming as he took a deep breath. "Our illustrious math master has goaded Toby into a   
berserker rage," he said in icy tones. "And if we don't do something very, very fast, that boy is going to slaughter us   
without any control at all over his actions!"  
Harding stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack, before he raced into his office and began hunting for the number   
to the X-Mansion.  
  
Jubilee stopped dead, staring in horror at the scene before her. Several children were collapsed and bleeding badly.   
One – Lighthouse? Light-something? – especially, blood pouring down from a cut in his dark hair. Others were still   
mobile, with only minor wounds. She looked about wildly. "Toberoonie?" she ventured.  
"Not here," came a voice in shell-shock. Jubilee knew that tone very well. That was the tone she used after she had   
tried to convince the Wolvester that getting the hell outta there was the better part of valour – and failed. She met the   
gaze of Toby's little friend, Gabby. There were tear-tracks down the girl's face, and her eyes were full of dread.  
"Where'd he go?" asked Jubilee. Oh no, oh god…  
"He… he finished hurting Mr. Thompson, and then he seemed to become himself again. Then he let out a wail – so   
sad! – and ran away. I don't know where he is." Gabby tried to take a step forward, but her legs gave out, and she fell   
with a thump! onto the ground, before she began to cry once more. "I tried to make them stop," she sobbed. "Why   
wouldn't they leave him alone? Oh, why did I tell him to stand up to them?"  
  
Charles Xavier had the feeling that something was wrong.   
It wasn't anything specific, per se, just a feeling of uneasiness. He was at his desk when the first message reached   
him.  
Charles!  
That wasn't a mind-touch he was familiar with. At all. His brow frowned as he tried to chase the trace back, but it   
had been too brief. Shaking his head, he turned back to the monotonous dullness of the tax records.  
Charles Xavier, can you hear me?  
This was virtually unheard of. Who did he know who knew he was a telepath, who knew his name and general   
whereabouts, to call him thus? Outside of the X-Teams of course, and he was familiar enough with their mind-touch.   
Charles Xavier?  
A completely different mind-tone than the first! Charles blinked in exasperation. Maybe he was just going stark   
raving mad once more. God only knew you could depend on his mental stability to swing like the seasons.   
Charles, it's Toby…  
That was nothing like Toby! Someone was playing silly buggers.   
Who's Jean?  
  
Charles Xavier? This is Henry Wallace… are you hearing this?  
Who the hell is Henry Wallace? Charles pondered.   
I am Toby's English teacher. He's gone berserk, and Richard has gone and lost your phone number, the daft fool.  
  
Charles, it's Richard! You've got to come quickly! Toby's…  
I just heard. I'll send Hank, Nathan and Logan around. By the way, is this Henry Wallace…?  
Trustworthy. Don't worry, I didn't reveal anything he hadn't already surmised. The man's a sponge for gossip.  
  
  
My stars…  
Fuck.  
  
  
They found him in a dead end alley. Cable had followed the trail of self-loathing like a homing beacon. The boy   
hadn't tried to hide his scent either, so Logan could verify Nate's directions.   
His face and arms were covered in crusted blood. His hair had been lashed into thick ropes by the congealing stuff. It   
was drying as flecks in the corner of his eyes, on the back of his throat. His school uniform was stiff, a dull ochre   
colour, and smelled of sickly-sweet copper.   
Red-rimmed iridescent blue eyes peered up at them from the shell of blood, from this terrified young creature of   
mayhem. The amount of horror in them was only balanced by the ferine freedom.  
"Tiger?" Logan said softly.  
Help me!  
Hank readied the needle. It wouldn't keep him under long.  
  
He spoke aloud. "I couldn't stop it, Nate. I couldn't... I did everything you taught me…"  
  
Promise?  
  
It was so dark and miserable. Toby paced like a newly-trapped tiger in the small cage in the basement. There were   
scores on the inside of the metal. Hardly aware of the purling growl rumbling deep in his throat, he raised one hand,   
and ran a claw along one. His underdeveloped claw wasn't wide or strong enough yet to create such a deep score.   
Toby was going crazy. Completely, totally, utterly crazy. He now knew exactly how Victor Creed could have   
become a killer – simply to avoid being plunged back in the cramped confines of the prison of other's good   
intentions. His thoughts flew erratically from one topic to the next. Goddamnit, there was no room! He was a   
creature made for running, made to race through huge open spaces, chasing his prey… and what did they do? Lock   
him inside a cage less than three meters square. He was going insane, his newly released emotions howling bloody   
murder inside his mind.  
Somehow, the utter torture gave him the strangest insights. He now knew why Mister Logan couldn't control his   
berserker rage. It had nothing to do with his past. It had everything to do with the loss of control – over his destiny,   
over the situation, even over his opponent. He had stared into the depths of his father's genocidal evil, and   
understood it. Sabretooth was honest, in his way, and if there was one thing he despised, it was hypocrisy. He was   
what nature had made him, and he acted with all the primal passion he had imparted to his son, without denying   
himself any of it. The killing was a natural extension – as a predator, it was his right. And the one thing he feared   
was a cage in the dark.  
Toby understood. He didn't like it, but he understood.   
He knew why a wounded bear would fight to the death rather than be captured. He knew why the wolf-pack left the   
injured and weak behind, and why they attacked the ostracized. It was nothing more than the ever-desperate, ever-  
insistent need to remain free and wild. A dead enemy cannot put you in a cage. A dead enemy cannot take your   
place.  
A cage. The bars burned into his mind. Everywhere he turned, they mocked him, fast becoming a blur as he threw   
himself against the sides in frustration and a mounting frenzy. "Let me out!" he screamed.  
Out! Out! Out!   
"You can't leave me in here! Goddamn, you don't understand… it's a cage! I'm going crazy!"  
Crazy! Crazy!  
Gritting his teeth, he pitched his voices as high as he could, and roared. The echo off the sterile basement walls   
mocked his futile gesture, and he slumped back against the bars, which pressed into his back. He wasn't the least bit   
surprised to find that the force of his cry had caused blood-vessels to burst in his eyes, and he was now weeping   
blood instead of salt water.  
It also didn't surprise him when Xavier's familiar telepathic presence intruded upon him.  
Hello, Mister Professor, he thought listlessly.  
  
How the hell should I know? I'm going crazy in here.  
  
I'd be perfectly calm if I wasn't in a cage. Oh, and if I wasn't being treated like a fucking animal.  
  
Oh, what does it matter, Professor? You don't understand. I'm going to turn out just like Dad from being in here.  
  
Toby's escaped rage burned up with the vitriolic bile of a thousand flaming suns. Being down here's helped me   
figure out a few things, Professor. Like why my Dad would rather kill than be put in here again. I need to move, to be   
free, to get out of this muzzle and this goddamned fucking cage. A CAGE, Professor! I'm not an animal! I'm a   
mutant who lost his control – permanently if I can't get out of the dark and the cramped…  
  
Toby's mind-tone was faraway, weak and distant. You want to know something, Mister Professor? You want to   
understand the Grand High Fuckup itself? You dream for equality for all mutants to be exactly what they are, no   
prejudice, no questions asked, but that only applies to those mutants with the 'civilized' mutations. Do you really   
think that because I act like an animal I ought to be treated like one? Hell, look what you did to Mister Logan. Look   
what you're doing to me. Even better, you send my Dad off the deep end again. Who knows? He could have pulled it   
together if you hadn't put him in a cage. And then he wouldn't have had to rip Miss Betsy apart, so's not to be put   
back in.  
Toby's dreamy mind-tone belied the sharp acid of his words, which hit far too close to home for Xavier's liking.   
What did a cage represented to a mutant with the instincts of a wild animal? Especially a confused, scared, volatile   
young boy like Toby, who was already fighting for his sanity. He didn't need the added loss of his dignity and   
freedom as well. Xavier locked the thoughts down tight, hoping Toby hadn't caught them. He was there because it   
was for the greater good. They couldn't trust him in the open.  
Dignity. That's a nice word. I like that word. Only I gave mine up, didn't I? Or was that before, when I let them hurt   
me? Oh, I don't know what's real anymore. Is the cage only in my head? Why can't I run? Where's Gabby?   
God forgive me, Xavier thought, his eyes closing. Do I have the right to pass my own judgement any more?  
  
The mansion seemed so cold without him, yelling his head off for Hank to help him with his homework, moaning   
when Nate indicated it was time for another mental workout, planning jokes with Jubilee and Bobby, singing to a   
melancholy Rogue. Dinner was strange and oddly formal without his always withdrawn but still cheerful presence   
and his unorthodox manner of eating. Jean had opened the fridge, seen the usual stock of chicken drumsticks, and   
burst into tears. Rogue couldn't even bring herself to go shopping. And Ororo watched the sunset, her cerulean eyes   
glimmering with reflected memory.   
They weren't feeding him meat anymore.  
And no-one could bring themselves to say his name – the name they had given him.   
Logan was simmering over. He couldn't believe it. There seemed no end to the acid bite of his fury, which bubbled   
inexhaustibly. He had warned them. Well, he had warned 'Ro. Should he have done more? Could he have prevented   
it? The doubts and self-recriminations were starting to make him truly berserk as never before.   
Harding was no better. And Gabby's illusions had been terribly and irrevocably shattered – she would never again   
envy him for being a mutant.  
No-one had died, thank god. In fact, all of the injuries except a certain, very select few, could have been mistaken for   
grazes. Luke Lightner would need stitches, however. Jean had stepped over the ethically correct impositions   
enforced by the X-Men, and erased the incident from all but a few select minds. In a surprising show of active   
justice, she allowed Lightner to remember. No-one would believe him, though, she made sure of that.  
Thompson was in hospital from loss of blood. Instead of wiping his memory of the event, Jean replaced it with his…   
Toby's… chaotic anguish. And then, to emphasize her point, she allowed the pitifully mediocre man to view the   
dance with denial that had been the boy's life. And she was very, very visible.  
My name is Jean Grey, and I am a telepath. I can vegetablize you within moments. So shut your bigoted mouth, and   
let me work, and maybe you'll come out of this a little less everyday. After all, it's not every day someone gets his   
memories fucked around with.  
Unless, of course, your name is Creed…  
Xavier had taken to staying up all night. The psionic vibrations the boy was emitting meant that any half-rate psi   
worth their salt was a permanent walking (or floating) wreck. Hank was feverishly concocting things in his lab,   
trying for some sort of medical miracle. But no amount of the Shi'ar substitute for Valium was going to mellow a   
rabid boy with a healing factor.   
Marrow had disappeared. As soon as she heard that the boy was being kept in the same cell as his father, she left.   
Kurt and Betsy were looking for her, because they simply could stay and hear the cries, roars and screams echoing   
from the basement as the boy fought with his mind.  
Scott couldn't stop blaming himself. Not only for not foreseeing the event, but up to and including letting the boy   
inside the mansion a year ago. He continued in that vein until Logan threatened to carve him up. For the first time in   
five years, Scott and Logan fought again, after having buried the hatchet supposedly for good.   
Bobby made himself ice-sculptures and wondered why the boy's name had been taken away again, and if it were a   
sign of his approaching bestial brutality. Animals didn't need names, he thought sadly. Names are a human   
innovation.  
Cable drank cup after cup of coffee, and sat staring at the wall. He'd promised his help. He'd promised. But he had   
no idea how to help. And it was just like Tyler all over again.  
Remy stayed out all night, got plastered on Long Island Iced Teas, and came home the next afternoon stinking of   
perfume or aftershave, cigarettes and alcohol. Just in time to have a shower, gulp down a Berocca or four, and go   
straight back out.   
The exception to the general atmosphere of despair was Wallace, of course.  
  
KNOCK, KNOCK.  
Scott sighed, lifting his bespectacled eyes to the corridor. Was it really only a year ago that Toby had knocked at   
their door, with nowhere else to go?  
With an explosive sigh, he pushed himself from the deep armchair in the rec room, and dragged his feet slowly   
toward the door. He stood for a moment, looking at the dark, impressive wooden portal, his mind lost in a vague   
memory, half-remembered. Then the tentative knocking resumed, and he shook his head, before pulling the door   
open.  
Toby's friend Gabby stood there, fidgeting nervously.  
Scott blinked, though no-one would have noted it – his face stoic, only his concealed eyes betraying his surprise. It   
was a technique long perfected by him – using his glasses (or visor) as a shield between himself and the outside   
world. Gabby writhed under that seemingly impassive ruby gaze.  
"Um… hello Mr. Summers," she tried. Her voice petered out into an almost-whisper as she noted details that had   
escaped her. Like the way Scott's face was blotchy, and black rings were visible beneath the lower rim of his ever-  
paramount shades. The way his jaw moved convulsively, and the manner in which his Adam's apple bobbed   
dangerously in an uncharacteristic show of emotion.  
Scott stared at her. Toby really had a way about him, didn't he? Despite almost massacring the school, he instilled a   
sense of deep loyalty in them all. Despite everything. Despite his father. "Come in," he croaked.  
Gabby's lower lip had already begun to tremble. "Where is he?" she asked softly.  
Scott hesitated. On the one hand, there was revealing the all-consuming secret – the private identities of the X-Men.   
Or, he could show her the lower levels where Toby was being kept, let her know the secret, and give the boy some   
hope. He knew Toby trusted this girl very much. But did Scott trust Toby's judgement any more? Could he afford to   
take the risk?  
"Please, Mr. Summers. I have to know that he'll be okay," said the girl in a voice very close to tears. Scott made the   
mistake of looking into those liquid brown eyes, which had been cranked up to toxic levels.   
"This way," he found himself saying.   
Gabby showed absolutely no surprise at the contents of the lower levels. Scott felt cheated in some cosmic manner –   
he'd been the possessor of an important confidence which this girl obviously already knew.   
The universe had it in for anyone with the name Summers, he just knew it. It explained so much.   
He pressed his hand to the plate. "Summers, Scott."  
"Thank you, Cyclops," said the electronic failsafe pleasantly. Scott contentedly noted the widening of the girl's eyes.   
Well, she hadn't known that, so obviously she wasn't as perceptive as he had given her credit. And the universe was   
letting up on Summerses at the moment. Not a clone or resurrection in a year.  
No, he thought, sobering with a small, sad shock, it was saving up to dump it all upon the Creeds of this world.   
The X-marked plate swung backwards, and Gabby took in the lower basement, large, empty, pristine and metallic, lit   
by a soft yellow light in a corner. There was a large, battered cage in the middle.   
Cage?  
No, they wouldn't have.   
She kept her attention on the cage to avoid looking at the occupant. There were dents in the metal bars – obviously   
made for someone a lot stronger and larger than her puny boyfriend. The floor and roof of the cage was a foot thick,   
in a silvery metal she didn't recognise. It didn't look like steel.   
There were scratches across the shiny surface – both from the outside and the inside, as if the captive had reached   
around through the bars and tried to swipe for someone on the outside. And there was an impact crater on a part of   
the floor. There was a blonde-headed boy inside, staring with red-rimmed blue disbelief at her.  
"Gabby?"  
They had. Oh god, they did.  
"Oh no," she breathed, dropping her bag and running up to the cage. The metal was cold to the touch. "Toby…"  
"I thought I wouldn't be allowed to see you again," he said softly. There was a hint of madness in his previously   
unassuming, unprepossessing voice. A hint of ire, something sour and wild, a touch of arrogance where previously   
he had been humility personified. "How'd you get here?"  
"Sco… er, Cyclops brought me here."  
He smiled. "I always knew you'd figure it out." It was a strange smile. Not the light lift of the lips she knew so well.   
This was a bitter half-grin, which revealed far too much fang for her to be particularly comfortable with.  
"It wasn't hard," she said uneasily. "After you introduced me to Hank McCoy, the rest was just informed   
guesswork."  
He nodded once, before dropping to his haunches. There was something inherently primal about that one movement,   
something which rubbed against Gabby's ultra-civilized edges in the wrong way. She was a creature of comfort and   
diplomacy. This was someone she couldn't reason with.   
"Are you…okay?" she asked hesitantly.  
His head snapped back up to her. "I'm in a cage," he said pointedly.  
She swallowed. "I, er, noticed. But apart from that…?"  
"There is no apart from that. I'm in a cage. Everything else is just wallpaper."   
Gabby closed her eyes. She didn't know how…  
"I'll just, um, leave you two alone then?" said Scott uncomfortably.  
"You shouldn't, you know," said Toby in a dangerously calm, level tone. "After all, I could kill her." Definitely not   
humble. The unleashing of his own deadly potential had caused a shocking change in Toby's attitude.  
In his visible attitude, she corrected herself, a shudder running icy fingers down her spine.  
Scott shifted slightly, his chin raising, assuming almost unconsciously an authoritative leader stance. "You might be   
your father's son, Toby, but you are not Sabretooth. I know you. I trust you." For a second Gabby saw a flash of   
scarlet from beneath the ruby glasses. A warning. "Don't disappoint me – or yourself."  
"Yes, Cyclops sir, certainly Cyclops sir," Toby snapped, moving to the back of his cage. For the first time, Gabby   
got a good look at him.  
His body was naked to the waist, scratches and dried blood decorating it in a crazy, frightening pattern. He wore his   
school pants still, but they were stained almost purple with crusted blood. His feet were bare, and his hair was in   
long, stringy whiplike ropes, held together with yet more blood. Gabby took a quick intake of breath and couldn't   
stop herself from recoiling.  
He noticed, naturally, and smiled that frighteningly altered half-grin again. His teeth were white and incongruously   
clean, the overlocking fang glinting ominously. "Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm going crazy?" he asked as the door   
slid shut.   
  
Richard Harding was a broken man.   
He sat at the local bar and knocked back a glass of Guinness in one throw. Charles Xavier sat and watched him   
compassionately, sipping a port occasionally.  
"So what you're saying is…" Harding said, after he had regained use of his eyes. "You can't help the boy."  
Charles shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I run the risk of erasing him altogether. A personality is a dangerous thing   
to toy with, Richard. Memories, perceptions, these are easy. These shape the personality, so it can be achieved in a   
roundabout sort of way…"  
"Could you do that for Toby?" Harding pounced on the remote chance.  
Charles paused. "I'd prefer not to," he said, choosing his words carefully.  
Harding scowled at his old university colleague. "And whyever not? Aren't you willing to help him?"   
"Of course I am!" Charles flared, then calmed, taking a deep sigh. "I am. But I cannot do it for him. He has to   
overcome this himself."  
"Charles you can't possibly be serious. Why, you know how his father…"  
"He is not his father," Charles interrupted in a completely steady voice. "He is not."  
"Then why are you treating him as such?" Harding asked pointedly.  
Charles couldn't find an answer for that. He was silent for a pause, before answering, "I'm afraid that he may well   
lose the fight. And should that happen…"  
"Then he will become his father," Harding finished. "Hang it all, Charles, how does this help me?"  
"It doesn't," said Xavier in his eminently rational voice. "It's to help him. After all, that's the business you're in,   
isn't it?"  
Harding floundered, before scowling and knocking back another Guinness.   
"Besides, my student, Jean, altered the perceptions of all the children. They believe that there was nothing more than   
a rough game of football on the field, and that Toby beat them quite thoroughly."  
"Well, he did that," Harding murmured. "God so help me, Charles, what am I to do about Thompson?"  
Charles inclined his head. "I am taking care of it."  
"And those children who know the truth?"  
"Have been utterly discredited. You'll see."  
"Forgive me if I seem a little skeptical," Harding said with consummate sarcasm. "Recent events, you know."  
"Don't be snide, Richard, it doesn't suit you," Xavier leaned back in his wheelchair. "Have I ever let you down?"  
Harding grunted. "What are you doing to help the boy?"  
"His name is Toby," Charles murmured to himself. "Toby."  
"Well?"  
"It is up to him," Charles repeated.  
"And how do you know this?"  
"Because I tried to help his father, and failed miserably," Charles admitted in a low voice. "But his father never   
wanted my help, and didn't try in the least. Whereas I trust Toby to overcome his nature – or at least find a way to   
live in harmony with it."  
Harding gaped at him. "And you sent him to a school full of upper-class mutiphobes knowing this?!"  
Charles raised an eyebrow. "I sent him to the school run by one of my oldest friends, knowing that said friend would   
treat him with respect and care."  
Richard subsided. "So all we can do is wait."  
"That is all we can do. That and pray."  
  
"Toby?"  
He wearily lifted his head. His throat was sore from screaming. How many days had it been?  
"It's me, Gabby."  
He thought he could see a worried face swimming in a sea of blood.  
"I brought you something…"  
Gabby laid the chicken drumstick on the floor of the cage. Toby didn't move, huddled up against the far bars. His   
eyes were wild. She noted that he had been cleaned and clothed, but the damage had been done. She had seen him,   
covered in blood from head to toe. Of course, that was when he was still speaking.   
It was far different to see, than to know, she thought in despair. She'd known, of course, that Toby went berserk   
when provoked. She'd never seen it. She couldn't even comprehend it. And Gabrielle Marshall, a creature of   
diplomacy and culture and society, found that it was the most terrifying and intractable thing she'd ever experienced.  
This was someone she didn't know, and couldn't understand. This was someone who experienced emotions on a   
level unsurpassed by her, who had touched the primal, reptilian brain pulsing beneath the veneer of civilization, and   
found it attractive, rather than repulsive. This was someone who had surpassed her, and whom she couldn't reason   
with.  
This was an underdog who had dispensed with her charity. He had no need of her. And if this was who he truly was,   
then he never had.  
Those crystalline blue eyes bored holes into her, unblinking and unwavering. She shifted under their gaze.  
"Are you okay?"  
Stupid question. Stupid girl. He didn't seem to notice, staring straight at her, straight through her.   
"Um, Joe and Andy wanted to know if you were all right. Joe's left the Group, by the way."  
He didn't answer.   
"Lightner's totally out of it. No-one's talking to him at all. Even Vanessa Schaeffer left him."  
Not a word. Not a single sign that she was reaching him. Not an infinitesimal indication that her concentrated   
diplomacy, charm and philanthropy was having some effect.   
Gabby felt like howling in misery. This was someone who, for all her skill and flair, was immune to her every   
blandishment. She couldn't control him! Looking into those eyes, pinned like a small mammal beneath the   
headlights, she knew that no-one ever would. He owed her nothing. She had no hold over him. And she couldn't act,   
flirt or negotiate her way past him. Here, in this cage, he was free of all the fetters that had chained his mind.  
And it frightened her like nothing else on this world had.   
  
Logan had resolved to let the boy out. He was going to let Toby out. He was. Logan was the only one who knew   
what a cage would do to him. He knew what it meant, to lose the right to follow your nature. Therefore he owed it to   
the boy.  
He should have done better by him. A warning hadn't been enough. Too little, too late.  
His boot heels struck the polished metal floor with a sharp retort, the sound bouncing before him. It sounded as   
though a thousand booted little leprechauns were running in front of him. Feet which slowed to a halt.  
He couldn't do this, in all good conscience. He couldn't let him out.  
But he could go talk to the boy, couldn't he?  
No. No, he wouldn't be able to restrain himself. And the titanium cage was no match for him. Toby was no match for   
him.  
He let out an explosive sigh, staring down the empty corridor. His eyes were distant and conflicted.  
He owed it to the boy. He owed it to himself.  
But he couldn't. He couldn't take the risk it afforded. No-one could be sure if Logan's suspicions were correct, or if   
the change in personality had been triggered by the berserker rage. If so, it was paramount that the boy remain   
incarcerated in a safe, reasonably non-hostile environment. Should Logan release him, and the madness was not   
induced by the cage, then Toby would be loose in Salem Center. He would either butcher his way through the   
community, or be shot within a few hours.   
Logan writhed in the suspended agony of indecision. He was a creature of action and movement – introspection was   
not a part of his psychological make-up. He was no Scott Summers – to be consumed with overtly dramatic angst   
every time a choice came his way. He was a military man, and thus capable of making a decision in a split second.   
Irresolution was something he was mentally unequipped to deal with.  
Therefore, he concluded, he decided not to decide.   
As his feet turned back away from the darkening, metallic corridor, an unholy shriek of betrayal made shards of ice   
form in his spine. He shivered, glad no-one could see him here, and picked up his pace. Millions of booted   
leprechauns ran before him, mocking him with the speed of their flight. His flight, dammit.   
He cocked his head as he passed the south-west entrance to the hangar. "'Lo, darlin'."  
"Ya can't do it either, can ya, sugah?"  
Logan smiled grimly. "You tried, too?"  
Rogue passed a dirty hand across her eyes, and settled her stride to match Logan's. "Yeah, Ah tried. Ah've absorbed   
your mind more times than anyone else – Ah know what you must feel about this."  
Logan's face seemed calm, impassive. But there were signs, such as the restrained, controlled walk instead of his   
usual prowl, the intent, focused look in his eyes, the tensed muscles along his jaw. "It's just like they did ta me. Put   
me in a cage, try an' break me. Turn me inta their tame animal."  
"Ah know."  
"You don't. You know that I lived through it. But you don't know what it's like, what it does t' ya." He stared past   
her eyes into the hangar. Ah, Rogue must have been helping with the Blackbird. Only she had the strength to lift out   
an entire jet engine. "I owe it ta him. I been there. An' I promised…"  
"So did Ah."  
"But ya can't even talk ta him, can ya?" His gaze shifted to lock onto hers. "It's too much like his father."  
Rogue's expression was sardonic. "No, really? Lessee, he's mortally threatened the public community – the   
community we're supposed to protect, Ah might stress. He's gone berserk an' placed a man in hospital. He screams   
day an' night, he makes no sense, he's nothin' like the boy we've known fer a year… an' t' top it off, that's exactly   
the manner in which Creed acted when he was here. You got a talent fer understatement, sugah."  
He grunted. "He ain't seein' anyone but his little friend though, is he?"  
"Hank said he talked a bit at first. But his mind's goin'. Soon he'll have screamed himself away." Rogue's hand   
rubbed under her nose once, then again. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. "He'll be gone."  
"Nah…" Logan knew what Toby meant to this woman. He couldn't help but put the best face on the entire disaster   
for her benefit. "Chuck helped me. He'll figure out what ta do. It won't come ta that…"  
"It has!" Rogue sniffed again. Her face was mottled. "It already has. Oh gawd, Logan, Ah wish I knew… is it the   
cage that's doin' this to him, or is he becomin' his father like we always feared?"  
Logan closed his eyes. "I honestly don't know, Rogue. The only one who could have found out was Chuck…"  
"An' Toby won't let him in," Rogue completed. "How about…?"  
Logan shook his head. "Nate tried, an' got the mental equivalent of a drop-kick. Red ain't gonna risk pushin' him   
further. An' Betsy's too scared o' him ta try an' give him the glow."  
"You know somethin'?" Rogue wiped roughly at her eyes again.  
"Yeah?"  
"Ah ain't so sure that the professor has the answers anymore."   
Logan knew she was referring to more than Toby's condition. She sniffed once more, and he pulled her into a hug   
before she started to cry softly into his shoulder. She's right. Chuck helped you… but who's to say he can help Toby?   
Look how much help he was with Sabretooth…  
He stifled the doubts and indecisions. After all, he didn't know how to deal with them.  
  
Toby sat fidgeting on the floor of his cage, playing absently with a chicken bone.  
Possibly the cruelest twist of the entire incident was the horrible irony. He had been locked up for becoming what   
people had assumed he already was. Oh, it was just too beautiful.   
They weren't feeding him meat. At all. The chicken bone was from that drumstick Gabby had smuggled in for him,   
before he lost the taste of the wild forever. She'd come and seen him three times. She was the only one.  
The single light in the basement winked balefully at him from the corner. Toby was fully aware that it was mad   
notion, but he thought that if he could only see the sun, and not that tinny artificial illumination, everything would   
automatically become better. A child's fantasy, a madman's dream. But then, what was he?  
Perhaps he'd be forced to spend the rest of his life here.   
No-one came to see him, or even talk to him. It was if they were pretending he didn't exist, that he wasn't their   
problem. Which really, he shouldn't be. Maybe they'll give me to the government to take care of me. His meals were   
brought in by Hank, who had tried to strike up a conversation. At first, Toby had been grateful for the distraction, but   
as his mind degenerated into howling insanity, Hank gradually gave up. Which was a first – the ever garrulous Beast   
not speaking. Hank also hosed the boy down, gave him a sponge and a towel, and gave Toby some clean clothes.   
They smelled like the outside world. Apart from that small, elusive contact, he was left alone with the demons of his   
own devising.   
He'd begun to cut himself simply to see the blood. Blood was life – and life was freedom.  
If only they hadn't put him in a cage! A doghouse, fine, he could live with that. But not to see the sky…! Not to   
move or think or breathe or live!  
He had no idea how many days he had been alone with his insanity.   
A byproduct of this madness was this peculiar mindset. He understood his father. Perhaps the only person in the   
world who could say that with any certainty about Victor Creed. Toby flicked the chicken bone a little too hard and it   
skittered past the bars.  
He stared at it, sitting so smugly beyond his reach. Enjoying the freedom he had lost (through no fault of his own!),   
able to determine its own direction without being called an animal! Not an animal! Toby!   
He dimly realized that he was screaming at a chicken bone.  
A foot came down on the bone – a foot clad in a sensible, respectable patent leather shoe. Toby started, his lips   
drawn back from his teeth in a suddenly soundless growl. The foot drew back, bringing the bone with it. Toby's eyes   
followed it avidly, scurrying over the slippery-cold surface of the cage, dropping to his hands and haunches to tilt his   
head between the bars.  
"What a sorry, sorry state of affairs this is, my lord."  
A mellifluous voice, cultured and urbane. Upper-class English accent. Resonant baritone, a beautiful voice.   
Melodramatic and expressive. Toby's eyes snapped up. "My lord," he snarled. His voices were hoarse from   
screaming. The words felt strange in his mouth.  
Wallace shook his iron-grey head. "No. No one's lord." He bent down and picked up the chicken bone. Involuntarily,   
Toby' gaze locked onto it, and he licked his lips absently.  
"How did you get down here?" Speaking was so uncomfortable!  
"Now, now, my lord," he replied, tossing the chicken bone. Toby let out a low, pleading noise. "You should have   
known by now that I find out everything eventually."  
He knew. He knew. Jean hadn't modified his memory. Toby slunk back a little, his shame and rage billowing once   
more. Wallace noted, and raised an eyebrow, the picture of educated civilization. "Oh indeed, the telepath tried to   
alter my memories. But I intercepted her at her task." He chuckled softly to himself. "I possess a exceedingly tidy   
cranium. I'd prefer to keep it that way, thank you so very much."  
"You caught Jean?" Toby was incredulous. He watched the chicken bone change hands.   
Wallace tapped the bone against his other hand, watching the boy's eyes bounce with the motion. "Affirmative, my   
lord. And I persuaded her to leave my recollections in their present state."  
Toby was silent, watching the chicken bone.  
"It wasn't your fault, Toby. Stop acting like it was."  
The blunt words were enough to make Toby's eyes flick back up to Wallace's face. It was unlike Wallace to speak in   
unadorned terms, unless it was a matter or great importance. "Then whose fault would you say it is?" Toby said just   
as frankly. The days of pretending to be something he was not were over, this was his essence, raw, bestial, distilled,   
overpowering. Wallace's other eyebrow raised, and he gestured with one hand. Unfortunately, it was holding a   
chicken bone. Toby's eyes flicked back again, and Wallace cursed himself internally. Blast.  
"If I believed in such things, I would say it was the deity of my choice," he said genteelly. "But as I don't, I would   
much rather put the blame, or rather, the credit, upon mother nature and her wily ways."  
"What are you talking about?" Toby snapped.  
"You do realize that this is the perfect opportunity, I hope," Wallace pointed the bone sternly toward him. Toby felt   
his deep-rooted confusion change tacks.  
"What?!"  
"My dear boy, has all my training been of no use?" Wallace sounded genuinely upset. "No, I see you're far too close   
to the situation. Step back. View the situation objectively.  
Toby's unleashed rage was flapping loose now, his bemusement complete. "Um… I can catch up on my sleep?" he   
offered weakly.  
"Good, but no cigar I'm afraid. Try again." Wallace gestured imperiously with the chicken bone. Toby actually   
whimpered.  
Oh god… "I don't know," he said, close to tears after a long pause.  
"You should." Wallace's usually smooth voice bit down on his bruised psyche. Hard. "It's written all over your   
face."  
Toby lifted said face, his eyes anguished. "Please don't… don't play word games with me now. I'm finding it hard   
enough to live in a cage as is without my head becoming more complicated than it already is…"  
"There, you see? There's an instance of what I'm talking about!" Wallace interrupted triumphantly. "Now, can you   
figure it out?"  
Toby racked his battered brain. What had he said? Oh godgodgod… his head was full of chicken bones and blood   
and cages and deathconfusiontrappedpain. Wallace titled his head, and laid a meaty finger beside his decidedly   
pointed nose.   
"Give up?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.  
Toby, his stomach a white-hot knot of bemusement, nodded. His eyes were flickering from blistering anger to   
complete wretchedness.   
"Well, I'm certainly not going to make it easy for you," Wallace rolled the chicken bone between his fingers. "I'll   
give you a hint: Who are you?"  
Toby rocked back in shock. "Toby Creed."  
"Again: Who are you?"  
"Toby Creed, sir?"  
"No! Think! Who are you!"  
Toby racked his brains in panicked befuddlement. "Me. I am me."  
"Good! Again!"  
"I am… human. Not an animal."  
"Even better! AGAIN!" Wallace's ever-expressive voice cracked like a bullwhip.   
"I don't have to be in a cage!"  
"WHO are you?"  
"Whoever I want myself to be?"  
"Who are you?"  
"I am NOT MY FATHER!" The last was screamed. Two of his voices ran up and down a melodic minor scale in an   
effortless glissando.  
"Again!"  
"I don't need to be unhappy…" Toby's eyes were bleeding again from the force behind his voices, but his mind was   
stirring. Wallace was forcing his mind to work again!   
"Who are you?" Wallace's voice was icy cold this time. Toby peered through the wet redness at him.  
"I am not the berserker rage," he whispered.  
"Again."  
"I am more than the berserker rage."  
"Good! Again."  
"The rage is just a part of me. It doesn't need to be me."  
"Again!"   
"The rage is a consequence, not a cause." His mind was working again!  
"Eureka! Again!" Wallace was flushed and dancing about maniacally in his excitement. He looked as if this were a   
usual talk in his little mildewed office, and they were arguing over some set text or grammar usage.   
"I'm confused. This is because I have only just released my suppressed personality, bringing with it years of   
studiously ignored or steadfastly borne insults and injuries – which triggered the rage."  
"AND?"  
"And furthermore, I was locked in a cage for something I couldn't control. I am a creature of the wild, of the   
outdoors. I don't belong in cages – they drive me insane. But just because I am a creature of the wild does not make   
me a savage!"  
"Ah…?" Wallace waved the chicken bone threateningly.   
Toby's brow furrowed. His vision was clearing – in more ways than one. "I am not a savage. Neither am I stupid.   
But I don't know how to cope when my suppressed emotions get the better of me. Instinct takes over."  
"Go to the head of the class!" Wallace lifted the chicken bone in a dramatic, declamatory stance. "Now, the three   
hundred thousand million pound question: Who are you?"  
Toby took a deep breath. "I am a mutant who has listened to his own misery for too long. I have relinquished my   
own identity in order to keep from unleashing the berserker rage. I have become so accustomed to being wretched   
and unhappy that I don't even notice it anymore. I have sacrificed my pride, my dignity and my humanity in order to   
control the bloodlust."  
"Wonderful!" Wallace threw the chicken bone into the air and caught it, stamping his feet madly. "And now…!"  
Toby was on his feet. He didn't remember standing, but he was, and his back was straight, his head lifted. "And I   
have as much right as anyone to be happy. I needn't repress everything until I boil over. I can stand up for myself! I   
can!"  
The wildly gyrating echoes of his voices echoed from the basement walls.   
"Then let them know it!" Wallace pointed the chicken bone threateningly at him.   
"Now?" Toby's voices spasmed with that one word, splitting octaves and creating dissonances that there were no   
names for.   
Wallace gave him a coolly superior look that brooked no argument. "Now. And you know you can do it."  
  
Anyone within a nine kilometer radius of the Xavier Institute that day at two o'clock experienced something a little   
out of the ordinary.   
Anyone within a radius of nine kilometers was suddenly over-washed with a gamut of emotions, from the oldest   
complaining about the food to the youngest mewling in their crib.   
Somehow, the diffuse and absolute fury that swept through the bodies by a tidal wave was experienced by every   
single person.   
It was accompanied by a desperation, a primal need to be free and to be whole, under their own power and direction.   
Many people also experienced a shocking terror of the madness that doesn't hit like a lightning bolt, but enroaches   
quietly and slowly, building up its siege to the point where you ultimately collapse.  
And a joyous celebration of the self. An assertion of the right to be alive, the right to be human, the right to   
experience one's own emotions. Without fear. Without trepidation.   
Some swore blind that they could hear screaming in their head.  
Others said no, no, it was roaring.  
One or two said no, it was singing. The sweetest young treble you ever did hear.  
Most said it was more than one person.  
A few corrected them by saying it was more than one voice.   
Edgar Thompson, lying in hospital, felt his wounds melt back into his body, and a familiar, hated touch upon his   
mind. That touch opened up the world that a small, terrified boy lived in as a telepath never could. It was the touch of   
an empath.   
Hank McCoy, his hand upraised to his latest experiment, dropped the beaker, which smashed in the floor of the lab.   
His jaw went slack. Then he fumbled for the keys to the cage.   
Richard Harding, stumbling dejectedly from the office, lifted his head in amazement. "He did it," he breathed. "He's   
done it."  
Xavier, attuned to the mental network as he was, doubled over in shock as the empathic bolt smashed through his   
shields.   
Luke Lightner, sulking apart from the rest of the Group, suddenly began to cry. Great, shuddering sobs racked his   
heavyset frame, as he understood what his actions had cost Toby in one brief, illuminating flash.   
Cable knocked over his coffee in shock. "I knew it," he mumbled, before leaping to his feet, an uncharacteristic grin   
plastered across his face. He grabbed the nearest person – Storm – and planted a huge kiss either cheek. "I knew he   
could do it!" he crowed exultantly, not even caring about his lost coffee.  
Gabrielle Marshall, sitting in her room as her mother and stepfather fought downstairs, was consumed by the animal   
passion that wasn't hers. It filled and empowered her, giving her a taste of the nature that cannot be reasoned with.   
She snarled, her little hands bunching, and strode off to face her stepfather.   
Storm felt as though the sun were back after the Arctic winter.   
Elsie Chappell, the music mistress, stopped in wonder as inspiration finally, finally struck. Then she rushed to the   
piano, and wrote what would become the 'Thunder' Piano Concerto in D major.   
Logan barely looked up from where he was slouched against the couch. Jubilee, curled up against him, flinched.  
"What was that?"  
"Someone just got even with the universe, darlin'."  
Jean, out shopping with Scott and Bobby, paused, and her face broke out in a huge beam. Dazed, Scott and Bobby   
both followed, wondering why they had such a craving for chicken.  
The emotional shockwave reverberated through Salem Center, changing people's perceptions as it raced through   
their mind and blood. Mostly, they shook their heads in stunned bemusement, before looking upon the world with   
new eyes. For all Toby knew before he passed out, it could continue moving around the world forever.  
  
When Toby came to, it was to peer into a concerned pair of blue eyes.   
"Hank?" he croaked.   
"Shh!" Hank said urgently. "Oh my stars… Toby, I'm so sorry. I should never have attempted to maintain and   
imprison you here, I never would have…"  
"Hank."  
"… and in all viability, as a theory it's perfectly sound, hah, sound, that's the crux, is it not? Still, the matter I'm   
most inquisitorial about…"  
"Hank."  
"… never have I witnessed Remy so dumbfounded, it was worth it just for that…"  
"Shut up."  
"Shutting up immediately," Hank grinned worriedly.   
"Now, where's Mr. Wallace?"  
"Over here, my lord. That was a little more spectacular than I was expecting…"  
"What exactly… happened?"  
Hank shared a speculative look with Wallace, before turning back to the dazed boy. "Your mutation matured."  
Toby blinked. "Really? Good grief. So what can I supposedly do?"  
"Ah… remember how your voice has empathic qualities?"  
"Yes, I remember. So I should be able to use my empathy properly now?"  
"In theory… but it seems that empathy is the least of your abilities." Hank's overlarge blue hand swept around the   
basement. Toby pushed himself up blearily. And gasped.   
Wallace was sitting quite demurely on a patch of air. The shiny, metallic walls seemed to have melted into obscure   
and bizarre shapes. And the cage had completely disappeared.   
"What…?"  
"I must say, when I set about to unlock your mind, I didn't mean to do this," Wallace gestured to his ungracious   
perch.   
"What did I do?" Toby was aghast. "Did I hurt anyone?"  
Hank helped the boy off the floor. "No. At least, Jean assures me that the empathic wave did nothing but disorient   
and confuse most."  
"Empathic wave!" Toby almost fell over again. Hank's mouth quirked.  
"Indeed. But that wasn't nearly so strange as the actuality-distorting wave. Very peculiar. And Gambit wants to   
know what you did to his powers to make him blow up half the danger room with one card."  
"What did you say?" Toby gaped at Hank.  
"About Remy? Oh, it's purely theoretical, but I'm certain that you are able to manipulate all descriptions of   
power…"  
"No, about the actuality thing."  
"Well, it's an application of the same concept. I would say that your voice is able to detect and rearrange most   
physical and spatial properties and laws. Therefore you could mess about with time, space, reality, or gravity, if you   
wanted," Hank tapped a finger against his lip. "I will need to do some more tests…"  
Toby scowled. "No cages. If you put me back in a cage, I will kill you, make no mistake about that."  
Hank met his eyes. "Understood," he said softly. "Toby, did you know that that is the first time you have ever, ever   
stood up for yourself?"  
Toby's flicked guiltily towards Wallace, who was beaming like a newly-risen sun.  
  
It took two weeks before Betsy looked Toby in the eye again. And that was when he asked her to. Of course, once   
she did, she was lost. One thing that hadn't changed about Toby was his elfin appearance and beguiling blue eyes.   
Hank privately thought they should be classed as amongst the more deadly weapons known to man.  
He had emerged from the basement, blinking, into the sun. Rogue immediately latched onto him, and didn't let him   
go until it was time to sleep. Logan tentatively ruffled his hair.  
"You were coming to see me, weren't you?" Toby asked flatly.  
"Yeah." Logan squirmed.  
Toby held his gaze speculatively for a few moments, before snarling. "You knew."  
"I couldn't be sure."  
Toby conceded the point, nodding his head once. "I'll kill or be killed before I go back into a cage."  
Logan nodded back. "Same. An' I'd think less o' you if you didn't."  
Jean confessed her not-entirely-ethical use of her telepathy to Toby, and he laughed until his sides were sore. She had   
made the entire school think that during an unusually rough game of football on the field, Luke Lightner had   
(unfortunately) gotten an erection. He hadn't, of course, and he knew that, but no-one else believed him. Obviously,   
at a school where there was a VERY visible mutant, homosexuality was not so exotic – but Lightner! The most   
power-mad, offensive and homophobic individual in the entirety of Salem Center! It was just too rich. And of course,   
the Group had laughed him out of their ranks.   
Harding had circulated the rumour that for the last eight days, Toby had been sick. Toby thought that that statement   
was the most honest rumour to have ever been whispered from one ear to another.   
Wallace gave his solemn word not to betray the X-Men's secrets, as did Gabby. However, his favourite topic of   
gossip became the X-Men's habits and idiosyncrasies for the next four months.  
Gabby, empowered by the empathic force of Toby's animal rage, had turned on her stepfather. She revealed to her   
mother that he had been threatening her to stay quiet about an affair he was carrying out with his trainee assistant.   
Gabby's mother, Julie, kicked him out with nothing but the shirt on his back and the ten dollars in his wallet.   
Gabby secretly resented that she had lost her pre-eminent position in the relationship between she and Toby. She no   
longer had the upper hand, nor did she receive most of the attention anymore. As an actress and an attention junkie,   
this was intolerable. Still, she knew she could still wrap him around her little finger. After all, there was more than   
one way to Toby's heart. And when he kissed her, and whispered, "Thank you for the chicken," she felt agreeable   
enough to forgive him. A little bit. Oh fine, okay, a lot.  
Thompson rendered his resignation. Harding refused it. "Edgar, you're a great math teacher. I can't possibly let you   
go simply because you can't face one student."  
"You don't understand," Thompson practically begged.   
"En contraire, my friend. I understand far better than you do." Harding's kind grey eyes twinkled. "You've had your   
heart changed about the boy. Rather forcefully, I've heard. And you're ashamed of how you treated him, and the way   
you forced him into a berserker rage."  
Thompson flushed violently.  
"And yet, you still dislike the boy immensely, and cannot stand feeling sympathetic towards him, which you do."   
Harding picked up the letter of resignation, glanced at it, and ripped it in two. "You're employed to be a fair teacher,   
Edgar. If you intend to leave, then I cannot in good conscience recommend you to another school. But," he held up a   
finger, "I have been accused of being unfairly fair. So I'll give you the one thing you don't want and the one thing   
you need: the chance to prove me wrong."  
And as easily as that, Thompson was trapped, to face Toby and his own cowardice both.  
Most of the X-Men apologized profusely. Xavier couldn't comprehend how wrong he had been. But it had all been   
in the name of what was right…! But that never made it right. He had lost sight of that – intentions never justified the   
means. He was as flawed as the rest of them. Toby had simply illuminated Xavier's misplaced confidence in his own   
supposed infallibility.   
Furthermore, Ororo couldn't stop blaming herself. Neither could Hank, Rogue, and Logan. They had known in   
advance, and they were closest to him. They had had the opportunity to avert the near disaster.  
Toby didn't forgive them. They had treated him as though he were no better than his father.  
And they didn't entirely trust him, especially now that he was willing to fight for himself. Not willing – eager.   
Still, they reasoned, as long as he kept training, he'd be fine.  
Toby simply watched the sun set.  
~FIN~  
  
Want more Toby Creed? HEAPS more at the arcHive - http://www.angelfire.com/comics/mamfa 


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